Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk warned that Russia could attack a NATO member within months and questioned if the U.S. would honor its mutual defense commitment in the event of such an attack.
Tusk told the Financial Times, Europe’s “biggest, most important question” is whether the U.S. is ready to be a loyal NATO partner if such a situation arises. He called for the EU to become a “real alliance” for protecting the continent.
“For the whole eastern flank, my neighbors… the question is if NATO is still an organization ready, politically and also logistically, to react, for example, against Russia, if they try to attack,” he told FT.
The Polish leader said a potential Russian attack was “something really serious.”
“I’m talking about short-term perspectives, rather months than years… For us, it’s really important to know that everyone will treat the NATO obligations as seriously as Poland.”
He suggested that the trans-Atlantic alliance review its mutual defense clause, Article 42.7 of the EU treaty, after Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, an ally of Russia, lost the elections in Hungary.
“What you need if you want to have, not only on paper, a real alliance, is true tools and real power when it comes to defense instruments and mobility of militaries from country to country, etc. It’s a very practical problem for today,” he said.
“This is why my obsession now and my mission is to reintegrate Europe. It means common defense… a common effort to protect our eastern borders.”
President Donald Trump has repeatedly tested the 32-member alliance since the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran.
He has cut off direct U.S. military assistance to Ukraine, threatened to take the Arctic territory of Greenland from NATO ally Denmark, and cajoled members to spend more on defense. Trump has derided allies as “cowards,” and slammed NATO as “a paper tiger”
Trump says the moment is “a mark on NATO that will never disappear.”